What lighting to use for Malawis

[Alan Silver]

Hello,

I'm in the process[1] of building a cichild tank and was wondering about
lighting. The chap at the LFS said they recommend a normal white light
and a blue one to bring out the colours. Is this sensible ? If not, what
is ?

Tank is a 24" cube.

Thanx for any advice.

Alan

[1] For those who remember all my questions a couple of months back, yes
I'm *still* in the process of setting up the tank. I had a major
disaster with a dissolving background and it set me back quite a long
way. I'm currently building a new background and hope to get this sorted
within the next week or so.

--
Alan Silver

[[email protected]]

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:43:55 +0000, Alan Silver
>
wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I'm in the process[1] of building a cichild tank and was wondering about
>lighting. The chap at the LFS said they recommend a normal white light
>and a blue one to bring out the colours. Is this sensible ? If not, what
>is ?
>
>Tank is a 24" cube.
>

I have always used 40W incandescent white spotlights. They produce the
best lighting and can be directed to produce areas of light and shade.
The disadvantages are short life and that they use more power than the
usual florescent tubes. The power need is offset slightly by the heat,
unless you have too much heat! The cost of replacements can be
minimised by buying the spotlights in bulk. When I was into breeding
Malawi cichlids I used both florescent tubes and spotlights. The fish
in the tanks with spotlights were more productive.


Steve
--
EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
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http://www.easynn.com

[T]

The blue flouresent will defianatly bring out the colours on the malawi's..
Especially the blue breeds.. ( Thats pretty obvious though ) . My future
show tank will have natrual and the blue bulbs in it as well.. I think my
fish look fantastic under the blue light.. Just starting out though, I
don't think it is that important...

Tim


> wrote in message
...
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:43:55 +0000, Alan Silver
> >
> wrote:
>
> >Hello,
> >
> >I'm in the process[1] of building a cichild tank and was wondering about
> >lighting. The chap at the LFS said they recommend a normal white light
> >and a blue one to bring out the colours. Is this sensible ? If not, what
> >is ?
> >
> >Tank is a 24" cube.
> >
>
> I have always used 40W incandescent white spotlights. They produce the
> best lighting and can be directed to produce areas of light and shade.
> The disadvantages are short life and that they use more power than the
> usual florescent tubes. The power need is offset slightly by the heat,
> unless you have too much heat! The cost of replacements can be
> minimised by buying the spotlights in bulk. When I was into breeding
> Malawi cichlids I used both florescent tubes and spotlights. The fish
> in the tanks with spotlights were more productive.
>
>
> Steve
> --
> EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
> Build networks from numeric, text and image files.
> http://www.easynn.com